Title: Us Against The World
Author: Crazy_Girl_Mary
Email: crazy_girl_mary@yahoo.com
Rating: mild PG-13
Pairings: Lindsey/Cordelia
Summary: AU: Things are going even worse for Cordelia before City Of. She’s in a desperate place and meets a charming wealthy man who makes her an offer she can’t refuse. He’ll give her the acting start she could only dream of, if she kills a vampire from a past, barely a distant memory. What will she do?
Disclaimer: I’m so damn sick of admitting they aren’t mine. They belong to Joss and all those other creeps that are genius.
Feedback: Pretty please with sugar on top? I love it. I love it all. I even love flames! I want honesty.
Dedication: To Rain, through this common thread of the Buffyverse I hope I can bring joy to a stranger in her time of need. Feel better soon sweetheart!
Author’s Notes: This is the answer to my participation in the Rainficathon. For the full challenge, see below.

Wrapped in his arms, awake while he slept, she contemplated whether she could really kill for him, for this life, for his job, for his love. But it wasn’t just kill, it was kill Angel, Angel a good man who saved people, who saved the world.

He wasn’t the only one, there were slayers and watchers, there were police officers and firemen, and there were doctors and schoolteachers. There were countless numbers of people who saved the world everyday, and they all had their time. Why should this vampire with a soul live forever? He should have his time too right?

He was a man from a lifetime ago, a life so distant in her past it wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be to come to her conclusion. For her Lindsey, to preserve his job and the life they had together she would kill Angel… she would murder a hero.

Poison had been the likely choice. She knew she wasn’t fast enough to stake him or behead him before he anticipated her actions, and she doubted she had the heart for that either. No… poison was simpler, purer, most of the time anyway. This wasn’t like what Faith had once tried. This poison had no anecdote, Lindsey had promised her that, and it would kill him within minutes of ingestion.

Ingestion, though, was the biggest problem they faced. All he consumed was blood, which he bought from a source himself. He would be likely to notice a tainted batch. But being the actress that she was, Cordelia had a solution to this problem and hoped against hope that the plan would go through without a hitch.

She took Lindsey’s limo to Angel’s office, looked at the sign on the door, and went inside the building, and up the stairs to his office. After getting no answer she didn’t bother to knock again, just stepped inside the office and left the door ajar.

“Hello?” she called out, “Angel?”

There was no answer. She knew he was here, they had had surveillance outside and he wasn’t seen leaving. Was it a trap? Did he know what was going on? Was he waiting for her to come deeper inside so he could kill her?

She almost smiled at that thought, despite her inner turmoil. Angel could never kill a human, even one sent to kill him. Lindsey told her about Faith, how she had tried to kill Angel and failed, and all he did in return was hold her and give her a place to stay until she turned herself in to the authorities. She was willing to bet that had really pleased Buffy and would’ve loved to be there to see her face as Angel comforted her archenemy.

If she succeeded in killing Angel would she be Buffy’s new enemy? Would Buffy want retribution? Cordelia doubted the Slayer would even know, and if she knew he died, she wouldn’t know it had anything to do with Cordelia, who would be a superstar, a world away from all her small town Sunnydale relations… a world away with Lindsey at her side.

She jumped as she looked up to see him standing there before her. The lower half of his body was wrapped hastily in a towel and he was dripping water in a puddle at his feet. She saw a hallway behind him and a lit bathroom from which he had emerged among pouring steam.

“Cordelia,” he said lightly.

“Angel,” she said with a smile, “It’s been a long time.”

He looked caught, like he had absolutely no idea what to say or do. Then his senses came over him and he looked down at his towel and then up at her. “Sorry, I’ll go get dressed, it’ll only take a minute.” He gestured towards the cheap chairs seated around a large wooden desk back dropped by a wall of books. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Sure.” She doubted comfort was possible in such cheap furniture but she tried anyway and waited impatiently for him to resurface from the apartment down the hall.

After a moment he came awkwardly back into the room and instead of sitting around the desk from her in a professional tone he leaned against the desk before her, folded his hands over his waist, and looked expectantly at her. He hoped she would come out with it already, she assumed.

She obliged. “I got a job,” she said happily but he could see her fear and she didn’t mind, that was part of the game after all.

“That’s good,” he sounded unsure, “you look well.”

“Thanks,” she said and let out a deep sigh.

“So do you wanna get to the part where you tell me why you’re really here?” he asked.

For a dreadful second she thought he knew everything but then she looked up to see his eyes were genuinely concerned.

She pulled a bottle from her purse, opened the lid and feigned drinking some before passing it to him. “Drink to the good old days?” she asked.

He nodded and looked at the expensive label before bringing it up to his lips. It took everything in her to not scream when he lowered it suddenly at the last minute. “It’s really good to see you again,” he said with a smile before starting to raise the bottle to his lips again.

“Thanks,” she said lightly, “you too.” Her hands were shaking and tears were welling in her eyes but she just used it.

He lowered the bottle again and this time he put it to the desktop and took a step towards her. “What’s the matter Cordelia? Tell me what is wrong and I’ll fix everything.” His voice was soothing and comforting and his hand found her shoulder.

The tears began to fall and she was shaking. “I got this new job, and this boss, and they just… it’s just not how I thought it would be Angel.”

She stood and grabbed the bottle from the desktop as casually as she could muster and her now violently shaking hands brought it to her lips again, she feigned another drink and passed to bottle to him again, looking deep into his eyes, “Help me.”

He took the bottle and brought it to his lips again. And her eyes lit as he lifted his head and took a long gulp. When he took the bottle away his smile seemed to have something horrible inside it and she caught on, as he held the still full bottle close to her eyes, far too late, that he had known from the beginning. He threw the bottle across the room and it smashed loudly against the dark wood wall, shattered glass and poisoned wine raining down on the cheap linoleum.

“Now how about you tell me why you’re really here,” Angel said putting a forceful hand on each arm of her chair and trapping her beneath him.

Cordelia clung to the last remnants of her game, “Angel I… I came to get your help.”

He smiled, and leaned his face in menacingly towards her, “I can smell him all over you… and I can smell the deceit… far stronger then I can smell the poison tainting that wine.” He looked down at her and then backed away to lean against the desk again, this time taking a far more intimidating stance. “Why?”

“Don’t be naïve,” Cordelia answered coolly crossing her legs and looking defiantly up at him despite her fear, “for money.” She had thought Angel would be a push over but he was cold and terrifying at present. Her face softened against her will, “for love.”

“Love?” he asked lightly, “I’ve known love on a level you’ll never experience with that self-centered little shit, and I would never murder for her, for it, murder no one but myself.”

She stood but he put both his hands on her shoulders and forced her roughly back down into the chair, causing it to slide on the floor loudly back a foot. “Sit!” he ordered.

He turned around and picked up the phone from his desk and handed it to her. “Dial.”

She looked at him with the beginnings of protests and stalling questions but she caught them at the look in his eyes and turned her eyes down to the phone to dial. “Lindsey?” she asked lightly.

He grabbed the phone from her hand roughly, “Hello Lindsey.” He looked at her appraisingly, “Nice try, if she didn’t smell like you from head to toe in an intense way I maybe would’ve bought her false tears… Nevermind, I knew she had to have evil on her side to get a job.” He frowned, “Now now Lindsey, you’re in no place to make threats besides, idle threats will get you nowhere.”

He pulled her purse from her lap despite her clutch on it and emptied it out on the desk next to him. “Credit cards in your name? Lindsey have you looked into this girl’s background? That was her parents downfall, letting Princess Cordy play shopping mall.”

With the sweap of his arm the desk was clear and the purses’ remnants had littered the floor beyond the desk and out of her reach. He stood and walked to the window. “I see your limo is still outfront,” he said to both of them, “hoping for a quick getaway? Sit down!” he said over his shoulder at her. She listened. “I’m willed to be kind…” he was saying to Lindsey. “I want you to take your new playmate and leave Lindsey. This isn’t playing anymore. This is your last chance. Take her and leave forever, if you come back you’ll wish I had the nerve to kill you both.”

With that final warning he turned and slammed the phone down on the desk. “Go Cordelia, if you love him go with him and go faraway. I’ll warn Buffy and if you show your face in Sunnydale I’m sure she’ll be happy for the chance to do all those things she’s been itching to do to you. Go.”

Cordelia stood, not bothering out of fear, to stop and collect her discarded items. They were the remains of yet another destroyed life, soon to be discarded. She would do as Angel warned. She sat in the limo and watched the window they was her love had, seeing a different life, them together, a simple life, but together. It would be her and her man against the world. She smiled as she pulled up in front of his apartment where he was waiting on the steps with a few bags and a troubled look, maybe this would be for the better.

The Challenge...

Hi! Thank you for signing up for the RAINFICATHON. The following is your assignment:

Lindsey/Cordy
You have until March 8th to complete the assignment, if you cannot complete the assignment then please let me know well ahead of time. Remember the following rules:

1.) All fanfic must be rated G, PG, PG-13, or R. NO NC-17 Fanfiction.
2.) All stories are due March 8th.
3.) Rain has requested that there be no fluffy bunny type stories, so, if you could abide by that, it'd be great!
4.) Have fun!

That's it!

On March 8th:

If you have a livejournal: post the story on your livejournal and leave a comment with a link on my journal entry that says "All RAINFICATHON ENTRY LINKS, COMMENT HERE." OR, if you'd prefer, you can e-mail me a link to your story, or as an attachment in a word document or text file.

If you do not have a livejournal, then please, either go to my journal entry with that says to place all links to stories in the comments, and comment with the a link to your story (by leaving an anonymous comment), OR you can e-mail me with the link, or an attachment as a world document or text file.

My journal URL is: http://www.livejournal.com/usrs/__fallen

Thank you so much for signing up for the RAINFICATHON, TopazAngel appreciates this *so* much, and Rain will be entirely happy when she gets all these fics.

Have a great day, if you can't write, don't fret, just e-mail me and let me know.

- Fernando